In 2007, Mum's symptoms of dementia first became very noticeable in the form of unusual behaviour such as barricading doors, tying up gates with handkerchiefs, calling the police all the time to imagined intruders and obsessing over her two cats. But even years before that, she'd made bad judgments with money, selling her house to a conwoman for $100,000 less than it was worth and wasting money on employing tradesmen to carry out unnecessary work. She only became seriously forgetful in 2010.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

The back door won't open!

8th January 2010. I spent several hours with Mum. She had appointments to go to and shopping to be done. We had a look a a nice retirement village overlooking the sea. I don't think she'd pass the test for unassisted living though. I sometimes think she'd probably qualify for the dementia unit, but the memory problems, paranoia and strange ideas come and go. They're intermittent. Some days she's like her old self. She said she'd like to live in that village, but I don't think she'll make it there. I feel horribly sad and depressed over it.

Two days ago she got a new security door installed out the back.

I dropped her off home, went in and did a few things and then went home so exhausted from stress that I fell asleep on the lounge.

The phone rang. It was 7 o'clock. She's usually in bed asleep by then. It was Mum. "I can't open that new back door!" she said. "It's jammed! I have to be able to get out! You have to contact the people that installed it now and get them to come back!" I said, "Mum, you don't need to get out right now. Just lock the wooden door and go to bed. I'll look at it in the morning." "You hate me! You don't want to do anything for me! It's true what your brother said!" she shouted and slammed down the phone.

I thought: Good, she's gone. I went back to sleep. The phone rang again.

"I can't open that new door!" she said. Aaaargh.

I couldn't go anywhere, I was that exhausted. I rang her neighbours and they kindly went up there to see what was wrong.

They found the key to the door lying near the front of the house on the floor. There was nothing wrong with the door. She'd locked it herself.

When they'd arrived, she'd wanted them to call the door installers and make them come.

But the problem was solved - until next time.

When I've spent all day with her, I just want to go home to my house and rest. I don't want to be on call 24/7. I will go crazy if this keeps up.